Wonka's Nightmare
by Ferret Coldfinger
Summary: Mr. Wonka is haunted by something which he refuses to share with Charlie, and it seems to be slowly eating away at him. It's not long before his tortured imagination snaps.


Most certainly he was loosing his mind

Most certainly he was loosing his mind. His dreamworld stood before him in its entirety, but the colors were dark, there was a Twisting. The Twisting was in everything. There was a Twisting in the air, on the horizon, in the borders, a dry, ugly Twisting inside him. There was a Twisting in his smile. This was what is must be like to be drunk, he thought. This is what it's like to be drunk. He was tight throughout with terror, a vague, aching horror. His body, mind, spirit rebelled against this hateful, bitter flavor, this shattering, obliterating feeling. He felt very small and thin all of a sudden. The world was eating him. It dug its way into his pores. His fine clothes seemed to have evaporated. Some strange taste was filling his mouth. It was metallic, sick, and faintly sweet. There was more and more of it, he felt quite ill. It dribbled from his mouth to the ground below making very defined plat! plit! plat! noises. What was this stuff? It shone on his hand… but the color! No, no, it was the Twisting. Certainly, the Twisting. It was beginning to choke him, he tried to cough. More and more flowed, ceaselessly, violently. He had to swallow. He had to swallow…

Charlie noticed a change in Mr. Wonka. He had become suddenly reclusive. No, he wasn't hiding himself away somewhere, Charlie could understand that. It was that, even when he was around, he didn't seem to be there at all. Charlie would catch Wonka just staring; at a piece of candy, into a bubbling vat, at some invisible particle of dust in the air, wearing a such a strange look- what could you call it?- tortured, haunted. Willy Wonka, though? This man? What could possibly be haunting this man? Charlie took to wandering around the factory in his free time (there was little of it now), searching the endless multitude of rooms for any hint, any splinter of light, into the mind of the Idol. For the factory was the man, it was his world, dream, and imagination. They were one creature. So it would follow that any demon within the Inventor would have to be somewhere within the Invention. But which where was the somewhere?

Charlie looked and looked, but could never find it.

Instead, he was forced to watch as the great chocolatier slowly but surely withered away. Wonka would wander the labyrinthine hallways like a restless spirit, lost deep within the quicksand of his mind, his blue eyes dim and sunken, his little figure ragged and thin. There is nothing worse than the ruin of a great mind, as I recall Watson writing. Nothing hurt Charlie more than seeing the man he admired most in the world reduced to this mere ghost in dishabille, just a whiff of smoke dissolving.

At last, Charlie worked up the nerve to confront Mr. Wonka. The man sat motionless in the green swudge, staring absently into the churning chocolate of the river. Charlie reached out a careful hand and touched the shoulder of Mr. Wonka, who gave a terrible start, and turned to Charlie with frantic, sleepless eyes. Charlie felt his courage desert him as he quietly cleared his throat and tried to speak.

"M-Mr. Wonka…? Is there… something wrong? I know something's been bothering you… Please, won't you tell me?"

Willy Wonka stared into Charlie's thin, innocent face. Then he sighed shakily, as though exhausted, covering his eyes with a hand and pressing down, vainly trying to drive the images away.

"My dear boy… I can't tell you... You should never know. It's too horrible, Charlie. Worse than a Vermicious Knid. Worse than a Knid and a snozzwanger and the Jabberwocky all morphed together into some kind of Hideous Super-Nightmare-Beast… I can't… I can't ever tell you…"

"Please," Pleaded Charlie, "Please tell me. I can't stand to see you so unhappy. Whatever it is, I want to help you."

Wonka turned back to the eternal flow of chocolate, seeking guidance from the substance to which he was devoted. No, he couldn't tell him. Charlie was so young, just a child. But children knew so much about life, they knew how to face even the ugliest things while retaining their clarity and hope. Perhaps, perhaps he could help him to understand this Thing, this horror which festered in the human brain.

"Okay, Charlie…" He said at last, summoning all the strength left in his wasted form.

"It's called Slash Fanfiction…"


End file.
